TV & VIDEO - Sept. 5, 1988

Not bad for a series that’s been off the air since 1986: “The A-Team” concept still had enough brawn to fight off a copyright suit by the writer of another TV pilot that also featured a band of Vietnam veterans. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a federal judge’s ruling that overruled a jury’s earlier findings that NBC had assembled “The A-Team” from a screenplay called “Cargo,” by Ernest Olson. In a 3-0 decision, the appeals court said the two works had some general characteristics in common: Both were action-adventure series designed to show Vietnam veterans in a favorable light, and there was some resemblance between the leading characters. But the court said the similarities fell far short of the evidence needed for copyright infringement.